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Things appear to be tightening up in a congressional special election between GOP nominee Matt Van Epps and Democrat Aftyn Behn, known as the AOC of Tennessee, in a congressional district that overwhelmingly voted for President Donald Trump.
What’s odd is not so much that the race is in question, special elections are always odd and unpredictable birds, but rather, that Behn is a far-left socialist in a part of the country where conventional wisdom says a socialist should have no chance.
So why is this happening, and is it a warning sign for Republicans who believe they can sweep the midterms by running against socialism and making New York City Mayor-elect Zohran MamdaniMamdani the face of the Democrats?
Behn is the poster child for the loony left. She supports defunding the police to this very day and she has advocated that American women should refuse to have children unless they get demands met by the government. Not only that, an old interview has surfaced in which she said she hates Nashville, the largest city in her district.
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On Tuesday afternoon, I heard Clay Travis, who lives in the district, on his radio show abjectly apoplectic about the support that Behn is receiving. But is it really so strange?
I’ve spent much of the past two years traveling across America. One of the rarest types of people I ever meet on the road are moderate, what we used to call, Blue Dog Democrats. The ones I do occasionally meet tend to be over 60.
The Democrats I generally encounter aren’t scared of socialism, they tend to like aspects of it, as is borne out in a recent Gallup poll. It found that 66% of Democrats have a positive view of socialism, a number that will only grow as the older, more conservative cohort ages out.
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There are a lot of white 20- and 30-something humanities graduates out there who think they’re part of the intellectual upper class, but have $200,000 in student loan debt and can’t even dream of buying a home. They’re not wrong to think the system is rigged against them, they’re just wrong to think socialism can save them.
There is also an intense, and by and large successful, effort by Democrats to woo women voters, specifically with policies that appear empathetic, such as no-cash bail, in which the sweet and tender hooligan is coddled, even if it means they go on to commit more crimes.
Another argument that falls flat, especially with young Democrats, is “where has socialism ever worked?” I recently asked that very question of two guys in Texas, the first said, “Sweden,” then the other said, “Denmark, Finland….”
I hear that a lot, when younger Americans summon a vision of socialism it is not breadlines in Cuba or the former Soviet Union, but, rather, free healthcare and generous vacation benefits in Scandinavia.
Finally, the constant polarization of our congressional districts has made red ones more red and blue ones more blue, creating the most target rich environment that socialists have ever had in America.
What Republicans need to understand right now is that socialism, as a concept, is not as disqualifying as it once was, or as they still believe it is. If this realization is not made, it’s going to be a tough midterm for the GOP.
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This moment feels very much like 2016, when Democrats were licking their chops because Republican voters had chosen the supposedly unelectable Donald Trump as their nominee. We all know how that one turned out.
What is essential over the next year is that Republicans put forth ideas that can steal back the affordability issue, which Democrats have seized on, fairly or not, and as the fruits of the Big Beautiful Law spring to life, making sure that advantages such as no tax on overtime or tips are stressed.
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Behn does not have to win next week’s special election to amp up the socialist wing of the Democratic Party. Even if she stays within single digits, the far left will use it as a cudgel to insist that socialism can thrive in flyover country. And they might not be wrong.
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The political battle of the next decade in America looks poised to be between socialists on the left and whatever form of Trumpian populism emerges in the president’s wake, including some policies, like the government taking stakes in private businesses that traditional Republicans view as, well, socialist.
The most important thing to recognize now is that it is no longer a shock or anomaly when Democrats elect socialists. These days, it’s honestly more shocking when they don’t, and no longer just in New York and San Francisco. Don’t expect that to change any time soon.
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